The Story of The Bergamo Brothers Part 3
by ArcheryGirlAlisha
Summary: After I read Book 1, I really wanted to know the continuation of The Magian's Diary. So I searched the internet and here it is. I thought to post it here. HOPE YOU LIKE IT. Please don't sue me. All Copyright goes to Pseudonymous Bosch


_—jewelry and gold dress. Of course, I knew right away that this _  
_woman, she was none other than Ms. Mauvais. _  
_Now, I was more determined than ever to find out what _  
_happened to the young violinist. If I could find her, maybe—_  
_maybe—I could find my brother. _  
_The violinist, her name was Lily Wei and at the time she was _  
_kidnapped she lived in Juneau, Alaska. I decided I would go _  
_there and look for her family. It was at least a start. _  
_I knew Juneau well. All of the Alaskan cruises, they stop in _  
_Juneau and often I performed the magic on the cruise ships. I _  
_hated being stuck with all the tourists on the ocean, but I liked _  
_very much the Alaskan scenery, the wildlife and the icebergs. _  
_(Once, the audience, they looked out the window of the dining room, and an iceberg, I made it disappear. It was a simple _  
_illusion—I used like most magicians a mirror—but the audience, _  
_they loved it.)_  
_I did not know where lived Lily's family, so I did the old _  
_fashioned detective work—I looked in the phone book. _  
_There were not so many people named Wei. The first, a man _  
_named Mike Wei, his landlady, she said he had moved to California. The second, she was named Leila Wei, close enough _  
_to Lily Wei to spark my interest. But she turned out to be an _  
_exchange student from Taiwan. The other Weis, Mei and Ju-an, _  
_they lived in a small cabin in the woods not so far from town. _  
_If you have not been, Juneau, it looks like the magical place. In _  
_the mornings, fog rolls down the mountains, and you cannot see where go the roads. So at first I could not see the cabin. But I _  
_heard it. _  
_I heard one of the worst sounds known to mankind—a _  
_beginner's violin lesson. Usually, because of my synesthesia, _  
_this kind of screeching, it looks to me like the horrible black and _  
_red streaks. This time, the sound was most welcome—it meant I _  
_must have the right place. _  
_When I reached the cabin, I looked in the window where _  
_a boy was holding a violin in front of a music stand. He was so _  
_nervous that his bow, it shook in his hand. _  
_Standing next to him was a woman every bit as calm as her _  
_student was anxious. She had no jewelry or makeup and she _  
_wore a simple black jacket with a mandarin collar. And yet she _  
_radiated the beauty and the gentleness. When she smiled at her _  
_student, I wanted myself to be her student. _  
_She took his violin from him and demonstrated the piece _  
_herself. I recognized it now as Mozart, and she played it like the _  
_most wondrous mountain spring. _  
_After the student left, I knocked on the door. _  
_"Mr. Hoover, I presume? Please come in," said the _  
_violin teacher. "Forgive my saying so, but I expected you to be _  
_younger."_  
_I do not like to lie, but I played along. "Well, I've always _  
_wanted to play the violin. I just never had the time before," I _  
_said as I followed her inside._  
_On the walls were dozens of unusual string instru-ments: lutes and zithers and others I did not recognize._  
_"What a beautiful collection!" I marveled. _  
_"They are traditional Chinese instruments. Some very _  
_old. I collected them all during my travels." _  
_She saw that I was looking at a violin-like instrument _  
_decorated with a horse head at the end of the neck of where _  
_the scroll should be. It had only two strings and its body was _  
_square-shaped._  
_"That is the Morin-Khur. From Mongolia. In the old _  
_days, they made a Morin-Khur from the skull of a horse. With _  
_the horse skin stretched to make the resonator. Would you like _  
_to hear it?" _  
_"Please." _  
_"Close your eyes and listen—"_  
_I obeyed, and suddenly I heard the sound of a horse galloping. The horse whinnied, then stopped short right next to _  
_me. The effect was so startling that I opened my eyes. _  
_There was no horse—just a beautiful woman._  
_"Amazing," I said. _  
_She nodded and continued playing. But now I no longer _  
_heard the music—I saw it. A stream of colors poured out of the _  
_Morin-Khur and swirled around me—until I was almost dizzy._  
_Her eyes, I noticed, never left me._  
_"You play like one who sees music, Mae. You paint with _  
_sound," I said. _  
_"Mae was my mother. She is dead, Mr. Hoover.""Sorry," I said. "I am an old man and I confused the _  
_names." _  
_A hope was blossoming in me and I decided to express it. _  
_"You are the daughter. You are Lily."_  
_"Lily? My name is Anna. You must have has us confused with another family." _  
_She said this so calmly and casually that my heart sank. _  
_I felt she must be telling the truth. _  
_When she'd finished playing her final note, the sounds _  
_and colors kept spinning in my head, as if she had cast some _  
_kind of synesthetic spell. _  
_She moved so swiftly that I did not see her pull the long, _  
_needle-like sword out of her violin bow. By the time I grasped _  
_what was happening, it was too late—the sword was at my _  
_throat. _  
_The violin teacher, she held onto me from behind with a _  
_strength I would have not thought possible._  
_"Do not move, Mr. Hoover. I have killed men much _  
_stronger than you," she said in a voice so serious that I did not _  
_doubt her words for a second. "And I have learned the hard way _  
_not to have respect for age. So do not think your wrinkles will _  
_protect you."_  
_"Is that Kung fu?" I asked, gasping for breath._  
_My assailant nodded. "Kung Fu and music are not so different. _  
_Discipline is the key. 'Practice makes permanent,' my father _  
_always said. Master Yang said the same. That is how I knew I should trust him."_  
_"What can I say that will make you trust me also?" I _  
_asked, still choking._  
_"Trust you?" she laughed. "Do you not think that I _  
_recognized you as soon as I saw you? As if I could ever trust the _  
_brother of Luciano Bergamo!"_  
_"You know my brother?!" I was so excited to hear his _  
_name that I did not notice the tone of disgust with which she _  
_pronounced it. "Please, tell me—is he alive? Where is he?"_  
_I think the honesty of my question, the fact that I really did not _  
_know where my brother was, that is what convinced her to give _  
_me a chance. _  
_We spoke all that day and into the night. _  
_Up until this time, I had never heard of the Masters of the _  
_Midnight Sun. But, if Ms. Mauvais was their leader, I had no _  
_trouble to believe that they were capable of the deepest, darkest _  
_evil—that they were fiendishly dedicated to the pursuit of immortality, what they called the Secret, without regard to any _  
_lives other than their own. _  
_Still, what Lily said about my beloved brother Luciano, _  
_that he led the Midnight Sun alongside Ms. Mauvais, this _  
_I could not accept. This "Dr. L" Lili spoke of, he must be an _  
_imposter, I thought. Or else he was under a lifelong spell, bewitched by the Golden Lady. _  
_If I did not believe in my brother, I would die my brother's story—I have yet to see how it ends. It _  
_is Lily's story that I must tell now._  
_After being kidnapped, Lily, she spent four long years with the _  
_Midnight Sun. _  
_Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L, they thought they would find _  
_the key to immortality in the brains of synesthetic children—so _  
_all the while, they conducted the experiments on her. _  
_About that time, Lily, she would not say much. And _  
_what she told me I will not repeat. It was more than any child _  
_should endure, more than I hope any child will have to endure _  
_again. _  
_Dr. L, he did his best to make her forget where she came _  
_from. But sometime when she was around thirteen years old, _  
_the sound of a violin on the radio, it reminded Lily who she _  
_was—and of her father who had taught her the violin before _  
_even she learned to talk. She resolved then to escape or die—no _  
_longer could she live with the Midnight Sun._  
_Although she grew up in Alaska, Lily, she spoke some _  
_Chinese. The language, it would save her life. _  
_Just when Lily thought she would never find a way out, _  
_Ms. Mauvais, she took Lily to China to act as a translator. _  
_There was a famous herbalist who had a secret recipe for beauty _  
_that Ms. Mauvais, she had to have. _  
_When they met, Lily, she saw in this man's face the _  
_kindness, so she did something very brave. Right in front of Ms. Mauvais, she looked him in the eye and she said in Chinese, _  
_"This woman is a murderer. Please save me!"_  
_The herbalist, he just smiled like Lily had been talking _  
_about the weather. And Lily, she thought she had made the _  
_most terrible mistake. _  
_But late that night, the herbalist, who was also secretly _  
_the Kung Fu expert, Master Yang, he broke into the hotel where _  
_Ms. Mauvais and Lily were sleeping. Without a sound, he _  
_knocked their guards unconscious and picked up Lily out of her _  
_bed. _  
_Ms. Mauvais, she woke when he was already carrying Lily away. "Traitor! You belong to us!" Ms. Mauvais, she _  
_screamed at Lily. "And when we find you, we will claw out your _  
_eyes and we will cut out your tongue and you will wish you were _  
_dead!"_  
_Master Yang, he knew it was too dangerous for Lily to _  
_return to her parents—or even to contact them. The Midnight _  
_Sun, they would find her and kill her whole family. So he became Lily's guardian. _  
_Afraid to mix with other people, they lived in the Jinggang Mountains, sleeping in caves and foraging for food. For _  
_other girls, it would have been a life of hardship; for Lily, it _  
_was the paradise. Her guardian was determined to make her a _  
_Kung Fu master like himself, and he made her train constantly. _  
_When the Midnight Sun found her, he promised, she would be _  
_ready. Five years passed. When Lily turned eighteen, Master _  
_Yang, he fell ill. Under his instructions, she searched far and _  
_wide for herbs that would cure him—but nothing made him better. _  
_Finally, he beckoned Lily to his bedside. _  
_"Terces," he whispered. "You must find Terces."_  
_Lily, she buried her master with her own hands under his favorite yew tree. _  
_For ten years, she traveled the world searching for what _  
_meant Terces. At first, she thought it was the name of a man. _  
_Then she thought it could be a stone, a famous diamond perhaps. But she never came close to an answer. _  
_She was still afraid to visit her parents. But once a year, _  
_on her birthday, she would leave a flower on their doorstep, so _  
_they would know she lived. Some day, she vowed, she would _  
_knock on the door of their house and once more they would hold _  
_her in their arms. _  
_One year, she looked into the window but did not see her _  
_parents. Instead, she saw dozens of people dressed in white—for _  
_Chinese people, the traditional color of mourning. Her parents, _  
_they had died in a car crash. Or so she heard said. _  
_Lily, she stood in the street, tears streaming down her _  
_face. Tears that had not flowed even when her master had died. _  
_Tears that she thought the Midnight Sun had stolen from her _  
_forever."Lily Wei?" asked a voice behind her._  
_Terror coursed through her veins. It was the first time _  
_in all the years since she escaped from the Midnight Sun that _  
_she had allowed herself to be caught unawares. The first time _  
_anyone had recognized her. She was convinced she was about to _  
_be stabbed or shot or worse. _  
_Slowly, she turned to face her fate._  
_"You really shouldn't cry like that. It's a needless expenditure of energy," said the man whom she'd expected to be _  
_her executioner. "I am your parents' accountant, and I wish to _  
_talk to you about details of their estate. Please call me when you _  
_have recovered from this…unpleasant episode."_  
_He handed her a business card, then bowed stiffly and _  
_walked away._  
_On the front of the card was the name: "Mr. William _  
_Wilton Wallace, III, Certified Public Accountant." _  
_On the back, handwritten, was a single word: _  
_"TERCES."_


End file.
